Cross Cultural Understandimg

The movies that had been showed to us last week were good movies to see about the cultures of American teenagers. On both of the movies, we can see some differences of Indonesian’s cultures and American’s cultures. First of all, American teenagers are very expressive. They usually express their feeling freely as what they want. It’s rather different to the teenagers in Indonesia which most of them are not expressive persons. Another is that the teenagers in America are very individualists. They don’t really care about everything on their environment. In contrast, more of the teenagers in Indonesia think about their environment that’s why the teenagers in Indonesia don’t really expressive because they have to think more than twice whether what they did disturb the people around them or not. On both of the movies, the American teenagers also seemed have less of respect to older people which is very different to teenager in Indonesia which most of them still have lot of respect to the older people. Even though both of these movies showed more about the bad things about the American teenager, perhaps it didn’t really reflect about the whole teenagers there.

SUMMARY

Title : The Collector
Author : John Fowles
Year : 1980
Publisher : Dell Publishing Co., Inc.
City : New York
Page : 255
This book tells about Clegg Frederick's life. He is a young man who grew up with less of love. He lost his father in a car accident and her mother left him to his aunt and uncle. He loved his uncle very much but, his uncle was dead when he was fifteen. No one really loves him after that. He was not well educated man. He liked to collect butterflies for pleasure. One day he got a big luck. He won a lot of money from the lottery. He made his aunt, cousin and some of his friends happy with the money. He bought a big house on the village and a new car. He loved a beautiful young woman. Her name is Miranda. She was a well educated woman. He liked her very much but, he was not brave enough to tell her. He followed her everywhere she went. One day, he had a plan to kidnap her. Then he did it. He kept her at the cellar on his house. He gave her everything she wanted but the freedom. She had done a lot of things to go away from that house but she failed. She hated him very much but she also pitied him of all his past. At last, she gave him her body but Clegg didn’t want it. He just liked Miranda but he didn’t like her to do such thing. Clegg never set her free until one day she got a terrible cold and she was dead.

REFLECTION

Fowles, John.(1980). The Collector. New York: Dell Publishing Co., इंक

This book is about Clegg Frederick's life story. He is a young man who grew up with less of love. He lost his father in a car accident and her mother left him to his aunt and uncle. He was not well educated man. He liked to collect butterflies for pleasure. One day, he won a lot of money from the lottery. He bought a big house on the village and a new car. He loved a beautiful young woman. Her name is Miranda. She was a well educated woman. He liked her very much but, he was not brave enough to tell her. He followed her everywhere she went. One day, he had a plan to kidnap her. Then he did it. He kept her at the cellar on his house. He gave her everything she wanted but the freedom. She had done a lot of things to go away from that house but she failed. Clegg never set her free until one day she got a terrible cold and she was dead.
Fowles wrote the story from both of Clegg’s feeling and Miranda’s feeling during the time they lived together. It is very interesting. But, unfortunately the vocabularies he used on this book were little bit complicated so it will be more difficult to be understood for the beginner level readers.
For the readers this kind of book can be used to analyze people who probably have psychological disorder. We can also try to analyze how to help them.
Reading this book reminds me to a film that was being played by Hale Berry in one of the TV station. I forgot the title. It told about a man who have psychological disorder and he kidnapped girls on the basement. The characteristic of the man was similar to Clegg’s. One of the girls has been murdered by him.
This is an interesting book to read. We can learn lot of things from the story. Lecturers and students from the faculty of psychology can use this book for their learning material.

Annotation

The Sight
Patricia C. McKissack

The text tells about the story of Esau. Esau was a special boy that was born with the gift to see the future. His mother whom I think a nice and wise mother told him not to let anybody know about his special ability. But one day his father who is a bad father to be admired by Esau knew about Esau’s special sight and asked him to help him to do bad things. Because of that he lost his special sight. As he grew up, Esau had a nice wife, Charity Rose and sons. One night, Esau had a terrible nightmare which was a bad vision about his family. He decided to tell his wife about it and took his wife and sons to his mother’s house. Then, he realized that it was a wrong decision. Esau tried his best to save them and finally he did it very well. Although this story was probably a bit hard to be understood by the beginner level readers because of its vocabularies, the story was a nice and interesting story to read.

NOVEL SUMMARY

Title of the book : JOHN WANAMAKER: Boy Merchant

Author : Olive W. Burt

Publisher : The BOBBS-MERRIL COMPANY, INC.

City : New York

Year : 1962

Page : 200

The book tells about the childhood of one of the famous Americans, John Wanamaker. John Wanamaker is one of famous merchants in America. He was born in 1883. When he was child, he was a nice boy who liked to play just as the other boy on the earth. He was a special boy on his family. He liked to sell things to others. It was begun when he had to buy a fine paper for his Christmas card to his mother but he had nothing to pay for the card to his teacher. Then, he had an idea to change the card with his lunch, a special little cake. Little Johnny always wanted to get everything with his own money. He always had brilliant ideas to sell things. One day he found a cheat merchant on the city and he promised to him self that one day he had to become a good merchant. He had done a lot of hard work and gave his dedication to make his own store. Finally, he built a famous department store ‘Grand Depot’ on Philadelphia in 1876 and for the next years his department stores grew bigger in some places.

Novel Summary

Title of the book : Wilbur and Orville Wright: Boys with Wings

Author : Augusta Stevenson

Publisher : THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY, INC.

City : New York

Year : 1951

Page : 192

The book tells about the story of Wilbur and Orville Wright who invented plane in 1908. Wilbur and Orville lived in a good family. They lived happily on their childhood. Their family was the family who liked to make things. On their childhood, Wilbur and Orville liked to take things apart. Then, they would try to put the things together again. They mother and father never complained about what they did. They even supported them to do that because they realized that it would make them more creative. Wilbur and Orville liked to make or repair things. Since they were child, they had got money from their own job. They worked or make things to get the money. They wanted to get things from their own money, even for their school’s books and clothes. They never gave up to do something and to make things. Everyone on their neighborhood knew it. One day they got an idea to make something that could carry things and them-selves fly. They tried their best and spent a lot of money and time to make it. They finally succeed and got a lot of medals for their plane.

SUMMARY

Title of the book : Four Powers of Communication: Skills for Effective Learning
Author : J. Michael Bennett
City : New York
Year : 1991
Publisher : McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Page : 122

This book tells about some important things that students should mastered when they are studying in the university or college. The book describes some bad habits that we usually do and gives some tips to become good students. On the first chapter there are some tips to become organized students. We can be organized students if we can learn the rules, learn to make decisions and manage our time. On the second chapter, we can find some tips to make us to become efficient and effective on reading. We can also get some tests of our reading speed. On the third chapter, we can find tests to measure our listening skills, some bad habits that we usually do, and some tips to improve our listening skills. On the fourth chapter the author gives us some important things to do when we write. There are some factors that can make our written form is the good one. There are also some tips to become a good speaker on chapter fifth. Then, you can also find some tips to make your learning and test are the successful ones.

Formative Test 1

SUMARRY

Alcoholism

Rose Falkenhagen (1987)

In this article the writer tells about people who become alcohol addicted and the problems following. Alcohol is something that is familiar in American families both for the adults and the children. Alcoholism is a big problem that caused many of dangerous illness such as terrible gastritis, malnutrition and the damage of our cardiovascular system. It is also caused some mental problems to the people and even to the unborn children of the abuser. To be complicated the mater further, some social problems including the car accidents are also caused by the drunks in U.S. But we still have the time to reduce these problems and make it better. The education about the dangers of alcoholism and free counseling centers should be more published to the people, including the children. So, such problems can be handled earlier.

NOVEL SUMMARY

Title : The Hound of Baskervilles

Author : Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Year : 2003

Publisher : PT. Dian Rakyat

City : Jakarta

Page : 64

This book tells about the story of a famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. He has a good friend whose name is Doctor Watson. One day, there was a stranger come to their house. The man was asking for help about the case of someone death to the Sherlock Holmes. The death of Sir Charles Baskerville was very strange because some people think it was caused by a curse on the Baskerville family. The man who didn’t believe it at the first time became believe it but Sherlock Holmes didn’t believe it. He asked doctor Watson to accompany another strange man, Sir Henry Baskerville, who is Sir Charles’s nephew to the Baskerville Hall to check what was actually going on there. It was the place where the tragedy happened. Doctor Watson kept sending mails to Sherlock Homes about a lot of important things in Baskerville. It could help Sherlock Holmes to analyze the case when he wasn’t there. Some of strange things happened there and finally, he could find out that the death of Sir Henry was actually caused by Roger Baskerville or Mr. Stapleton. He is the unknown nephew of Sir Charles. He wanted money from the Baskerville. He frightened Sir Charles with the black dog. That was the reason why Sir Charles was dead by heart attack.

Novel Summary

Title : Silas Marner

Author : George Eliot

Year : 1999

Publisher : Penguin Books Ltd.

City : Essex, England

Page : 84

This book tells about the life story of a young man by the name of Silas Marner. He is a nice and honest man. He is a weaver. He lived in a big town. He had some friends and the most special ones were William, and a nice girl friend, Sarah. One day, the money on the church was gone and William accused him as the thief. Silas was found guilty of what actually William did. Silas was so sad so, he left the town after William married Sarah. He moved to the village of Raveloe. He was a very lonely person there. He had no friend but gold and silver coins. One day, the gold and silver coins was gone, someone stole it. He was terribly sad. He didn’t believe in God anymore after the terrible problem at the church and now this problem made it worse. Not longer after that, he found a little girl in his house. Her mother was dead. She kept the girl until she had grown up. They lived happily. She made him closer with God and the people. When the girl, Eppie, was eighteen years old, her real father who is a very important and rich person at Raveloe admitted her as his daughter and asked her to live with his family. Eppie refused it because she loved Silas as her father. Eppie married a nice young man and they lived happily with Silas